Baltimore philanthropist and businessman Sheldon Goldseker remembered as honest, humble
Sheldon Goldseker, a Baltimore real estate executive and the founding chairman of a foundation that has given millions of dollars to hundreds of local institutions, was remembered this week as a generous, community-minded leader who pursued the betterment of Baltimore without seeking the limelight. He died Friday at 82.
Goldseker chaired his family’s Morris Goldseker Foundation and was the president and CEO of Multi-Properties Inc., a residential and commercial real estate developer.
“He was authentic and the real deal,” Marc Terrill, the president of The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore, said Monday of his friend and associate of close to 30 years. “During a time when the world needs people of principle to call out right and wrong and truth from fiction, we will sorely miss Sheldon’s voice of reason and humanity.”
Sheldon Goldseker was in his 30s when he was thrust into the role of foundation chairman after his uncle, Morris Goldseker, died and bequeathed $11 million to start a philanthropic organization aimed at supporting low-income residents in the area. In his will, Morris Goldseker, who had come to the United States from Poland in 1914, specified that proceeds of his estate should “give aid and encouragement to worthy individuals to continue their education, establish themselves in business, overcome such adversities as accident or illness, or to maintain or support themselves or their families.”
Under Sheldon Goldseker’s stewardship, the foundation has donated over $130 million to more than 600 nonprofits and other institutions in the Baltimore area, according to a biography and history provided by the Goldseker Foundation.
Goldseker helped to found the Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers, known today as Maryland Philanthropy Network, in 1983 and served as the organization’s first president.
Click here to read the full article.
Source: The Baltimore Banner
Click here to read his obituary.
Contributions in his memory may be sent to the Baltimore Community Foundation, P.O. Box 37422, Baltimore, Maryland 21297-3422 or The Associated Jewish Federation of Baltimore’s Israel Emergency Fund, Attention Donor Center, 101 W. Mount Royal Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland 21201.